"Sea Snot" Explosion Caused by Gulf Oil Spill?http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1285347174
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill sparked an explosion of sticky clumps of organic matter that scientists call sea snot, according to ongoing research.
The boom likely precipitated a sea-snot "blizzard" in Gulf waters, researchers say. And as the clumps sank, they may have temporarily wiped out the base of the food chain in the spill region by scouring all small life from the water column.... Tiny plants in the ocean called phytoplankton produce a mucus-like substance when stressed, and it's possible that exposure to the Deepwater Horizon oil caused them to pump out more of the sticky stuff than usual.
This abundance of "mucus" made the naturally occurring marine-snow particles--usually about a few millimeters wide--even stickier.
"Everything they collide with in their path they collect and take with them," said project leader Passow, who's currently tracking marine snow aboard the research vessel Oceanus.